I think if you're going to do spending to decide if money matters it has to be a seasonal metric you base how much has been spent on the first team.. ..

Clubs like Sunderland and Hull will just have expensive squads because they have players who cost a lot of money a few years ago in the Premier League, whereas some of the clubs who have spent very little will have some talented young players who will probably end up being sold for a lot of money.

It still gives you an idea, though.

It used to annoy me when Grayson used to go on about his small budget when he had players who would probably be valued at over £50m in the current market.

Which obviously means the opposite is true. There are teams below us that have spent more. I think the table offers some optimism. It says that we're not really underachieving and puts credence in Orta's long term plans. It would be nice to be higher up the spending table, but we probably have the best academy in the league too.

Always hard to judge as you have to take various things into consideration not just money. For example Fulham have Sessignon who came through their ranks and as such cost nothing. For any other team to have a player of that quality they would probably have to spend upwards of £30m. Likewise as Clive pointed out a team can have players who had cost little in previous seasons suddenly come good and be worth a lot more, in Leeds's case Bradley Johnson, Beckford & Snodgrass probably cost around £250k but then a couple of years later if they were all starting a season would cost a team £20m to £30m. Likewise what players have left a club and as such needed replacing - -when we lost Beckford and then Johnson for nowt how many £ms would it cost to simply replace them and in doing so the team could have spent £20m just to effectively stand still. Or a more recent example would be Bartley's loan being up and if we had gone out and bought him, say for £10m, we would have been £10m down and not made an improvement on the previous season's team.

Money certainly helps but it is perhaps more important to have a director of football, scouts or manager that can identify talent before they become expensive.

Which obviously means the opposite is true. There are teams below us that have spent more. I think the table offers some optimism. It says that we're not really underachieving and puts credence in Orta's long term plans. It would be nice to be higher up the spending table, but we probably have the best academy in the league too.